60 NATIVES OF GREENLAND. 



From these remarks it must be apparent that there is not 

 much dependance to be put on the explanation given by 

 Charlevoix as to their national name. He says, that 

 Abenaqui Esquimantsic signifies eater of" raw flesh, and that 

 they are the only nation in the world that eats raw flesh ; 

 but the accounts of many Tartar tribes are positive in 

 asserting, that the eating of law flesh is known and prac- 

 tised in many parts of northern Tartary, and that the Tartar 

 horseman usually has no other mode of preparing his 

 repast than by placing it on his horse's back beneath the 

 saddle, which practice cannot be looked upon as a refine- 

 ment in cookery. Hence it is evident that the Green- 

 landers, or Uskee-m^ tribes, must have received their 

 national name from some other cause. 



In all the revolutions that language has vmdergone, the 

 pronoun seems to have maintained a sort of inviolability 

 throughout all nations. This is very remarkable in the pre- 

 sent case, in which the personal pronoun, belonging to the 

 speaker, is obviously the same as in other languages. 

 Thus, when an Uskee wishes to express absolute refusal, 

 he says, na-me, i. e. not for me. Requesting the reader 

 to bear this in mind, I shall next mention that the old 

 Roman term for water is written asqua ; and, as it is 

 evidently a remnant of an original language carried from 

 the East in the course of colonization, it will not be over- 

 strained to find its use adopted by other people very far 

 remote from the theatre of the Latin tongue. xVnother 



